In conventional air conditioners as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Utility Model Laying Open Gazette No.2-131152, a plurality of indoor units are provided, the plural indoor units are divided into a plurality of groups, at least one group of indoor units is connected to a single operating device and all the indoor units are connected to a centralized controller.
The operating device communicates control signals with each of the connected indoor units to operate the indoor units collectively or individually. The centralized controller communicates control signals with respective master units of the groups to collectively control the indoor units in units of the groups.
Problems to be solved
In the above-mentioned air conditioner, the centralized controller communicates control signals for controlling a start, a stop or the like only with the indoor units each designated as a master unit in each group of indoor units. Therefore, the centralized controller cannot control a start, a stop or the like of each indoor unit as a slave unit though it is connected to indoor units as slave units through signal lines.
In the case of controlling various kinds of operations of one indoor unit as a slave unit, an administrator or the like searches for the master indoor unit of the group to which the slave unit belongs and then the centralized controller transmits an operation signal or the like to the indoor unit.
Further, at the time of installing the indoor units, it is required to enter data on respective groups to which respective indoor units belong into the centralized controller. Such entry procedures have been made manually by the administrator or the like.
In such manual entry procedures, however, it costs much in time and effort to carry out an installation work and a test running work. Particularly, large-scaled buildings have a large number of indoor units to be installed thereby requiring extremely troublesome efforts for the manual entry procedures.
In addition, the manual entry procedures may cause entry errors. When an entry error occurs, there is a problem that a required indoor unit may not be operated in spite of execution of an operation control to the indoor unit.
This invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has its object of eliminating time and efforts in entering data on groups to which indoor units for air conditioning belong and previously preventing generation of entry errors.